Garden Enclosure with Raised Beds on Steeply Sloped Land

Using Henry’s plans as a basis, I built this deer proof garden enclosure on very steeply sloped land. This was quite the project, and due to the steep slope, I had to modify things almost every step of the way. The first stage was to till the hillside so that I could move dirt around. And of course there were rocks buried in the ground; lots of rocks. There was no way to get heavy equipment to the site, so everything had to be done by hand. This meant there was virtually no way to level the land completely. So I used a “tiered” system of stepping up each bed and leveling each tier where each bed would go.

The step-ups were quite extreme in some places; so extreme that I couldn’t follow the plans exactly. For example, you will see in one photo that some of the step-ups were so high that the adjoining beds didn’t even touch. So there was no way to screw the beds together following the original plans. The solution I came up with was that on the lower bed instead of putting the 2 x 2’s in the corners, I put 2 x 4’s that extended up beyond the top of the bed, to the level of the higher bed. I then attached a 2 x 6 going across these two extensions, and screwed that 2 x 6 into the higher bed, thereby attaching the two beds together.

Another modification made because of the step-ups (shown in another photo) was that there was an extreme step-up where the entrance platform needed to go. Because of the difference between the lower bed and the upper bed, there was no way to attach the platform to the beds (one bed was actually above the platform). So I attached 2 x 4’s vertically to the sides of the platform, then used these “wings” to attach the platform to the beds.

Other modifications included: For some reason when I tried to screw in the bracer boards to the top of the beds, as Henry did, it was splitting the boards on the beds (yes; I pre-drilled). So I just attached them to the side of the beds instead. I also had no way of hauling 16 foot boards on my truck, so I had to use 8 foot boards for the top rail all the way around. On one end of the enclosure, the top rails just didn’t seem very stable and had some give (probably because my cuts weren’t exact and there were slight gaps where they joined. So I just put a small section of 2 x 4 on top of the top rail across the joining gaps, attaching it to either side to bind both sides together. This seemed to make that end of the enclosure much more stable and solid.

Boards for the beds were Douglas Fir, cut to size and then stained before assembly. The framing boards were all pressure treated lumber. Wire mesh was 1/2″ by 1/2″ hardware cloth. I opted for this because we have a ton of ground squirrels that can squeeze through very tiny holes and are quite tenacious. And hey; if you’re gonna go overkill on a garden, why not overkill it all the way?

This whole thing was HARD! The unlevel ground fought me all the way. Even getting the soil up to the beds was an engineering feat involving a double-pulley system with two trucks. But I have to say the result was way better than I expected. I really like the way the tiered structure turned out. Thanks a million to Henry for all of his plans, videos, and advice!

Henry’s Reply: Building the original design on fairly flat ground with root infested grass was a massive chore, so seeing what you accomplished Chris on a steep slope deserves admiration! 99% of the population would never go this far, but the final result is worth it. You are definitely not afraid of hard work and the finished enclosure is truly impressive!

Henry’s Note To Readers: In 2026, I built another one of these enclosures and changed the fasteners used to assemble the raised beds and attach 2×6’s to the beds. For the raised beds, I used 5/16″ x 4″ GRK RSS Structural Screws which have a much higher drawing power (will pull slightly warped boards tight no problem), are thicker and will not easy pull out or loosen over time due to larger head. I pre-drilled the face boards with a 3/16″ bit – 3/4″ in from ends and 1 1/2″ from top and bottom edges to ensure no splitting. I did not pre-drill ends of short end pieces and no wood split (using SPF lumber).

Posts holes were located about 2 1/2″ up from bottom, and 2 1/2″ down from top of raised beds and 1″ in from the edges for a total of 4 screws per post – for these I used 1/4″ x 2.5″ long GRK RSS screws (no poke through and prevents getting cut in future) – 3/16″ pilot holes used for these too but only in the posts, not through into the beds and again, no splitting.

While they may be more expensive, in my opinion these are 5x as good as typical #8 or #10 construction screws and much stronger – and the large head provides a lot of draw power and will keep the bed corners tight for a lot longer. If you have already built an enclosure, you can still add these if you find the beds appear to be pulling apart in the corners.

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND USING THE GRK RSS SCREWS ( also, check out my review on them here )